Fable: The Return Chapter 43
The King battles for his life against the Court. Chapter 43 "Well now, look at you old chum!" Reaver started gleefully. "You finally found a solution for that wrinkled face covered in those odd blue tattoos." "They were Will Lines," The King started explaining horrified. "They were a symbol of how powerful he was." "Whatever. He was an ugly son of a bitch and I've wanted just cause to kill him for some time now. Besides, killing old friends always has a certain flair that normal murder can't quite top." Reaver smiled as he loaded his pistols. "Reaver?" Henry began. "Yes, my boy?" "Where is your sword?" "Oh, the dog ate it right before he tossed me through the wall. Be a kind fellow and cut the beast open for me. I feel as if my bullets won't help much against all powerful beings from the darkness of another realm." Henry sends wisps of darkness from his fingertips that cut open the lifeless body of Woltach. One thicker wisp pulls out Reaver's bloodied jewel encrusted sword and flings it at Reaver. Reaver catches it with his thumb and index finger, holding it with disgust. "Nifty new toys you have there. They new?" "Relatively." "Very well then, shall we?" The King interjects. "We have no other choice, I cannot leave my people to suffer in darkness and flame." "Oh, stop being so dramatic about it! Just fucking kill them!" "Fine. Just...one more bit of formality?" "Go ahead, you're the whole reason we're here anyway." "Thank you, Reaver." The King focuses his gaze on the two members of the Court that now stand before him, their masks now fuzed to their faces. "I am King of Albion, defeater of the Darkness and Savior of Aurora. I rule over these lands that you have tortured and burned, I am responsible for all of it." He breaks his gaze for a split second but refocuses as the Knight and Queen ready themselves for battle. "You have committed crimes against Albion. You have tortured my people, burned my lands, and ended countless lives. For this, you must be punished. As King of Albion, I sentence you to death and permanent return to the pit you call home." The Queen and Knight laugh lightly at the King's sentence. The Queen speaks, "A good speech, little King. But today is not the day we die. Nor is any other day. Today, your soul leaves this realm and falls into our home, the pit that it may be. Today your entire being will belong to the Court, and we will judge you for all that you have been, are, and ever will be. Today...we sentence you to an eternity of pain!" "Shut up already!" Reaver shouts. He fires one lone pistol shot, finding its mark in the very center of the Queen's forehead. Her eyes blazed and launched boiling black ooze towards Reaver. He blocked it with his sword, which then melted from the intensity of the heat. "Well...so much for the sword idea." The Knight raised his arms and black lighting erupted from his fingertips, sending Reaver flying into the stone wall, knocking him unconscious. "What was that he kept saying?" The Queen said lightly. "One bastard down, two to go?" "Fuck off, you bitch!" Henry cried with intense anger. He raised his claymore and surrounded it with shadow and flame, just like his father. The Queen laughed at the blade. "What's so funny?" "you think you're so tough with your big sword. Knight...teach him the meaning of pain." "Yes, my Queen," Knight responded. Lightning erupted once more from the Knight's fingertips, but this time it shot into the ground beneath his feet. Black ooze formed a boiling pool before the Knight. He lifted his hand above the pool, an object soon began to rise from the Void. A truly massive blade slowly ascended from the black pit. A claymore twice the size of Henry's, made purely of obsidian, tempered for hundreds of years, in a cycle of cooling and heating again until it was hard enough to withstand the force of a small moon striking the earth. Sharpened with the bones of thousands of generations of Albionite until it could cut a diamond like butter. Knight grabbed the hilt of the blade, the spine of an Archon wrapped with dragon's skin. A large eye rests at the bottom of the hilt, always moving and never blinking, held in place by a swirling vortex of shadow. "Behold, pathetic whelp...The Sword of Malice." "Cute." Henry smirked, readying his blade for war. Knight snarled and readied his blade. Their eyes locked, both took a step forward to set up to charge. Henry screamed and sprinted at Knight with his blade held high. Knight spun around, seining his enormous blade with him. He swung low as Henry brought his blade down. Henry thought quickly, he realigned himself and sidestepped in order to evade the pillar of sharp obsidian swinging for him. Henry's blade sunk deep into Knight's back on the left side. Knight's blade sent the very tip across Henry's lower gut, creating a bleeding gash. "No!" The King shouted, holding back tears. He lunged forward but was caught by the firm grasp of the Queen's shades. Darkness held him up against the wall, aligned his head and kept his eyes open. Henry fell to the ground, grasping his gut, trying to hold the blood in. "Watch, watch as your son dies. Watch as his blood spills onto the floor because of you! I want you to look into his eyes when his very soul leaves his body and flows into the Void where we will begin round two. You have watched your father, your hero, your wife, your friends, and all of your people die! And now you will watch your son, the last in the line of heroic blood, die like a gutted pig." The Queen laughed as tears ran down the King's face. The Knight rose, reaching behind himself to pull the claymore from his back. With a sickening crunch, he ripped it from his ribs and muscles and sent it falling to the ground. "Fetch the boy, get him up and open his eyes. I want his father to see him fall." "Yes, my Queen" As the Knight turned to grab Henry, he was met with a claymore flying through his throat, severing his head. The head fell from the Knight's shoulders and landed stiffly on the cold stone. Henry smiled at his father who was still ensnared in the Queen's shadows. With one hand, he gripped his blade, the other sent fire into his wound, cauterizing it immediately. "Two bastards down, Dad." The Queen laughed maniacally as the Knight grabbed Henry with one hand and threw him onto his knees. His fingers grabbed his upper eyelids and held them open tight. Henry started to squirm at the pain. Knight's other hand grabbed his severed head and placed it back on his spinal column. "Scream, worm!" Knight drove his knee into Henry's back, causing him to scream in a jolt of pain. "I've had enough of you and your pathetic cocky attitude! Before we came to these frozen shores, we made another stop along the way." Knight raised his hand and opened a dark portal to the Void. The black ooze then opened into color as it showed a burning forest. "What is that?!" Henry shouted through pain. "You're little forest island in the ocean. The one where your tribal bitch lives!" "No...No! You didn't! This isn't real!" "Oh, it's real! Look at it! Look at your home burn!" "My wife...where is my wife?!" "Dead and burning." "Don't listen to him, Henry!" The King shouted from behind the shadow covering his mouth. "It's all a lie! They are trying to deceive you!" The image of flames moved to Henry's small cottage in the back of the main city. His home is engulfed in black flame. In front of the home is a large spear, the top of which holds the head of Savannah, still dripping with blood. Henry watched in horror, seeing that it was not cut from her body...but ripped from her very spine. "No!" Henry pulled himself from Knight's grip, falling to the ground in a heap of tears and agony.